Tag Archives: drone

We released a new tutorial showing how to remove prop flicker, so if you have flicker problems on drone footage, check that out. (It’s also at the bottom of this post)

But what if you want to avoid prop flicker altogether? Here’s a few tips:

But first, let’s take a look at what it is. Here’s an example video:

1- Don’t shoot in such a way that the propellers are between the sun and the camera. The reason prop flicker happens is the props are casting shadows onto the lens. If the sun is above and in front of the lens, that’s where you’ll get the shadows and the flicker. (shooting sunrise or sunset is fine because the sun is below the props)

1b- Turning the camera just slightly from the angle generating the flicker will often get rid of the flicker. You can see this in the tutorial below on removing the flicker.

2- Keep the camera pointed down slightly. It’s more likely to catch the shadows if it’s pointing straight out from the drone at 90 degrees (parallel to the props). Tilt it down a bit, 10 or 20 degrees, and that helps a lot.

3- I’ve seen lens hoods for the cameras. Sounds like they help, but I haven’t personally tried one.

Unfortunately sometimes you have to shoot something in such a way that you can’t avoid the prop flicker. In which cases using a plugin like Flicker Free allows you to eliminate or reduce the flicker problem. You can see how to deflicker videos with prop flicker in the below tutorial.

Drones are all the rage at the moment, deservedly so as some of the images and footage being shot with them are amazing.

However, one problem that occurs is that if the drone is shooting with the camera at the right angle to the sun, shadows from the props cause flickering in the video footage. This can be a huge problem, making the video unusable. It turns out that our Flicker Free plugin is able to do a good job of removing or significantly reducing this problem. (of course, this forced us to go out and get one. Research, nothing but research!)

Here’s an example video showing exactly what prop flicker is and why it happens:

There are ways around getting the flicker in the first place: Don’t shoot into the sun, have the camera pointing down, etc. However, sometimes you’re not able to shoot with ideal conditions and you end up with flicker.

Our latest tutorial goes over how to solve the prop flicker issue with our Flicker Free plugin. The technique works in After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Avid, Resolve, etc. However the tutorial shows Flicker Free being used in Premiere Pro.